Classic Defender to make comeback?

[22s]

Came across this Autocar article this morning - apparently chemicals billionaire Jim Ratcliffe is planning to bring back the Defender, based on the results of a feasibility study. http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/land-ro...

Is it really likely that JLR will allow him to produce the car? And, given all the reasons JLR stopped producing the Defender in the first place, is it even likely they'd be able to produce a replacement (I guess the feasibility study will answer that one).

Seems like a crazy - but fun- plan?

[300bhp/ton]

Hugely unlikely.

And JLR only stopped making the Defender due to high production costs, i.e. lots of people on the production line. Nothing to do with the actual vehicle.

That and it doesn't fit in with their upper class yuppie image these days.

[camel_landy]

Never say never... Santana did something similar for years!!

The Defender is a bit of an odd one, whilst the manufacturing costs were high, it did still make money and Land Rover couldn't make enough of them. There were a number of problems though: It was strangled by legislation, the production facilities took up a lot of prime real-estate, it was very labour intensive (which made it expensive) and it was very old tech. Now whilst I appreciate some of that adds to the charm, when you look at it as a business, it was a millstone around LandRover's neck.

However... If a private investor can overcome some of these issues, there might be some mileage in it. For example, they could: Reduce the overheads with cheaper real-estate, cheaper labour, etc... Smaller scale production to meet small volume exemptions... Blah... Blah...

My money would be on production moving to somewhere like India and then shipped over here in kit form.

M

[Eviltad]

Just read on Autoexpress that it was BS and he was planning to build something "Like a Defender, with same values and character but with improved safety and driveabilty"